UK intersex woman Sarah Graham writes a letter to her body

SARAH Graham is a therapist and counsellor in the UK who was born with the intersex variation Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS). AIS, along with CAH and XXY is one of the most common biological variations underlying intersex.

She and her family were lied to by doctors from the age of eight until she learned the truth about being intersex when she was twenty-five. The misinformation and the unnecessary surgeries she was forced to undergo caused her to slip into a nightmare of addiction, depression and self-harm that she finally fought to escape from.

Sarah contributed to a series of audio essays on BBC Radio 3, A Letter to My Body. She speaks of her history and how religious homophobia and the fantasy of the sex binary has shaped common beliefs about biological sex.

Editorial comment:

OII prefers to use terms like “intersex variation” in preference to “condition”, but we respect the right of other intersex people to use this term to describe themselves.